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Colorado bill to limit gun rights of mentally ill in limbo

A proposal to create a task force and give mental-health providers broad powers faces a rewrite.

By Kurtis LeeThe Denver Post

Posted:
04/04/2013 06:24:12 PM MDT

Updated:
04/04/2013 11:35:32 PM MDT

After months of crafting legislation to keep firearms away from people with mental-health problems, state Rep. Beth McCann scrapped a plan to file the bill Friday and pulled it back for extensive revisions.

The Denver Post and The Associated Press reported Thursday on McCann's plan to introduce the bill Friday. The reports sparked a flurry of comments on social media, and, shortly afterward, McCann announced she was recrafting the measure and still working to gather bipartisan support.

Among the changes, McCann said, she will alter the title of the bill from "Limits on Firearms Possession" to better reflect its goal of managing access to guns by people with mental illnesses.

Republican leaders in the House said Thursday they still have problems with the proposed bill.

The early version of the bill McCann floated Thursday had two main components:

• Creating a task force to examine gun possession by those with mental-health issues, including those placed on emergency holds either because of mental-health or substance-abuse issues. The task force would be established by the Colorado Department of Human Services.

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• Providing an option for mental-health professionals to limit the ability of a person to purchase a firearm when the professional believes the person presents a significant risk of causing harm to others.

The measure would provide an additional tool for mental health professionals short of having someone committed if they make this conclusion.

"We need to be concerned about people having guns who really can't handle them responsibly," McCann said Thursday.

"The main purpose of the bill is to identify people, because of mental health or substance abuse issues, who really should not be able to purchase and possess weapons."

McCann's bill would be the final part of a package of bills Democrats have labeled as comprehensive "gun safety" proposals.

Bills that limit ammunition magazines to 15 rounds and require universal background checks on gun sales have already passed the Democrat-controlled legislature with no Republican support, and were signed into law by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Throughout the contentious debate over guns in the House and Senate, Republicans have forcefully denounced the majority of Democratic gun legislation and said that mental health is a key to combating mass shootings.

House Minority Leader Mark Waller, a Colorado Springs Republican, said he doesn't support giving mental-health experts the authority to place limits on a person buying a firearm.

Moreover, Waller says he doesn't think the mental-health community wants to be put in that position.

"If your rights are going to be taken away, it should be done judiciously in the way we do it in other circumstances," Waller said.

"When your freedoms are being taken away from you, you have to go before a judge and have that happen and I think that's appropriate in this circumstance."

James Holmes, the man charged with killing 12 people and wounding 58 others at an Aurora movie theater last July, had been seeing a psychiatrist prior to the shooting.

Waller noted that a task force "is probably appropriate," adding that he hasn't polled his caucus on the bill.

"My expectation is that members of my caucus would share these concerns as well," Waller said.